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I picked up a supposedly new copy of Big Bang Love, Juvenile A but have suspicions about it. Is this supposed to come with a booklet? Animeigo's website has some liner notes for the title, so it seems like it should.

I don't think so. I picked up my copy from Deep Discount, I believe, shortly after it was released, and I don't have one. Those liner notes that are posted on the website are on the special features disc (in the "Notes" section).

According to DVD Aficionado, a Complete Lone Wolf and Cub Blu-ray box set is being released on September 25

Ugh, excitement nearly dead thanks to this post at the Blu-ray forums

We are working on it and that is our target date. Not sure if we're going to make it.

We took the HD transfers and temporally noise-reduced them (4 days processing per movie!) and now I'm revising the subtitles for HD -- the higher resolution and ability to anti-alias and blend subtitles provides new options we want to take advantage of.

Best
Robert

They have to apply some amount of noise reduction, don't they? It may not be applied in excess. Or am I wrong about that?

No, you're correct. Pretty much every BD release is noise reduced to some degree. Just look at almost any Criterion "about the transfer" notes and you'll see "Image Systems' DVNR was used for small dirt, grain and noise reduction", or something similar. Specifically, I took that phrasing from Tokyo Drifter, and just checked Harakiri and it has the same note. A good comparison since they're both Japanese films.

Release of the Year for me as long as they haven't DNR'ed those films to death. Holding on to Eureka's beautiful set though.

BD.com review of "Shogun Assassin Boxset", disc 1 is the same as the previous standalone, while disc 2 holds the other 4 films.

If those screencaps are indicative of what the Lone Wolf set is going to look like, then I'm out.

AnimEigo tweeted that their Zatoichi DVDs are going OOP on September 18th. It'd be nice if Criterion would pick up the license so all but the last Zatoichi would be under one roof.

The Lone Wolf & Cub Set are six films on two discs, and according to Rock! Shock! Pop! a DNR-disaster. Looks like I'll be cancelling my pre-order.

Quite a disappointment. Wonder what are the chances of Eureka doing a proper BD-job on these great films?

Shame about this. Might be worth shooting Eureka an email to express interest. I have no idea if the DVD set sold well.

AnimEigo has put in a defense to the effect that they were only able to get ancient analog (Hi-Vision?) masters, and that it was a choice between terrible video noise and terrible DNR. These are presumably the same masters they described as "pristine" when they used them for the Shogun Assassin BD. Yeah, I know, marketing hyperbole and all that, but this is awfully brazen.

I relied on AnimEigo's SHOGUN HD master when I oversaw the Eureka BD. If their "undickedwith" masters look like SHOGUN, then it's possible, but it doesn't sound that simple. Not a clue.

What about the Eureka DVD masters? Were they the same analog masters as Animeigo used from 2005 or were these newly minted stuff from Toho?

The DVD masters came from Toho, but they were SD.

Sleepy Eyes of Death - Collector's Set Volume 3 is scheduled for February 12, 2013

According to their website, The Lone Wolf and Cub DVD and Blu-ray set, Shogun Assassin DVDs and Blu-rays, and The Geisha DVD are going OOP later this year. All these titles, along with The Sleepy Eyes of Death box sets(which are NOT going OOP), are on sale.

Hopefully this means that a company that will give the Lone Wolf and Cub films a proper Blu-ray has picked up the rights from Toho.

Have not seen this posted elsewhere, but Black Rain is going OOP in August. It is current $7.99 direct from AnimEigo.

The Animeigo site still has some films you can buy direct and I was hoping to crowdsource opinions from the board on what of the following list may be worth purchasing. I'm trying to avoid light fluff but being unaware of most of these it's hard to know up front.

The Blind Menace

The Great Killing

The Loyal 47 Ronin (1958)

Onimasa

Revenge (1964)

Samurai Vendetta

The Secret of the Urn

Shinsengumi Chronicles

Shinobi no Mono series

Eleven Samurai

Sleepy Eyes of Death series

Shinobi no Mono (only the first half is available), Sleepy Eyes of Death (the first 4 films are all they have available now), Onimasa, Loyal 47 Ronin -- are just a few I would recommend

Revenge is not my favorite Tadashi Imai film -- but it is probably about the only thing of his that is available -- and is worth seeing.

Secret of the Urn, for sure.

You can't go wrong with Hideo Gosha.

The Great Killing (assuming it's the Kudo film) is fantastic, quite the best of his 'assassination' trilogy [also includes 13 Assassins & Eleven Samurai].